The First Opera Ever*Rappresentatione di Anima, e di Corpo:

Maria JetteThe Gregorian Singers

in collaboration with

The St. Olaf College Early Music Ensembles

The Twin Cities Lute Co-op Dance Revels Moving History

and

The University of Minnesota Opera Department

www.thegregoriansingers.org

Sunday, March 2, 4:00 p.m.St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on-the-Hill

1524 Summit AvenueSt. Paul, MN 55105

Welcome!

This performance is presented by

The Gregorian Singers Monte Mason, director, in collaboration with

Phillip Rukavina and the Twin Cities Lute Cooperative

Gerald Hoekstra and the Early Music Department of St. Olaf College, Northfield

Jane Skinner Peck and the dancers of Dance Revels Moving History

David Walsh and the The University of Minnesota/Twin Cities Opera Department

Laura Hynes, Producer

For forty-one years, The Gregorian Singers has consistently presented early and 20th–21st century sacred choral music. This event represents a significant and exciting new venture into the realm of other musical possibilities, all the while maintaining our vision for the presentation of early music. Your attendance here this afternoon helps us recognize the value of such a venture and we hope for

many such concerts in the years to come. ~ MMM

Prior to this event, two workshops were given to help educate and develop interest in this project. These were presented at the University of Minnesota Opera Workshop Class on February 6, and

at the Coffman Condominium retirement center, Minneapolis, on February 24. The students were introduced to the earliest opera extant, and elements of historical context and baroque vocal styles were presented. At the Coffman Condominium presentation, this rarely heard “First Opera” was

presented with an emphasis on historical context and performance. In both workshops artists from the performing ensemble demonstrated parts of the opera as musical examples.

This performance is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council,

thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Please turn to page 4 for information on ensembles and performers, to page 6 for program notes and a time line, and to page 18 for information on upcoming events of participating groups.

Anima (Soul) Maria Jette

Corpo (Body) Nick Chalmers

Tempo (Time) Emory Tower

Intelletto (Intellect) Patrick Terry

Piacere con due compagni (Pleasure and Two Companions) Guillermo Rodri-guez

Emory Tower Jacob Fossing

Angelo Custode (Guardian Angel) Lauren Feider

Consiglio (Counsel) Sara Yoder

Vita Mondana (Worldly Life) Lauren Hahn

Anime Dannate (Damned Souls) Nathaniel Hendrix (solo) Ryan Coopergard

Jocque Warner Jacob Fossing

Anime Beate (Blessed Souls) Sophia Magro (solo) Elysa Bond

Lauren Hahn Christa Schmidt

Echo Elysa Bond

The Gregorian Singers St. Olaf Early Music Singers Twin Cities Lute Cooperative St. Olaf Collegium Musicum Dancers of Dance Revels Moving History

Rappresentazione di anima e di corpoby Emilio de’ Cavalieri (1550-1602)

Instrumental Sinfonias (Cristofano Malvezzi)

Act ITime tells us to do good works because time passes quickly and death follows. The Chorus, followed by the Intellect, offer their comments, followed by a debate between Soul and Body about the true purpose of life.

Act IIThe conflict between the forces of worldliness and those of the spirit intensify with the appearance of additional characters: Pleasure, two companions, Worldly Life, and a Guardian Angel. In this act the beautiful clothing is metaphorically stripped away from Pleasure and Worldly Life, revealing their true ugliness, and Body and Soul drive them off the stage.

Act IIIHell opens up to show us the spirits of the damned, followed by the appearance of the blessed souls in Heaven. Soul, Body, Intellect, and Counsel together urge the audience to love God and shun the “defrauding world,” and together with the Chorus sing praises to God.

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Participating in This Performance

The GreGorian SinGerS

Monte Mason, Founding DirectorSoprano: Deana Davis, Gabrielle Doran, Katie Eakright, Elina Kala, Mary Mason

Alto: J Michael Compton, Lauren VickTenor: Nick Chalmers, Jonathan Sill

Bass: Henry Dougherty, Steven Hodulik, Samuel Willodson

UniverSiTy of MinneSoTa Singers

Patrick Terry (Intelletto)Sara Lin Yoder (Consiglio)

Lauren Feider (Angelo Custode)

Dancers (working with Dance Revels Moving History)

Michelle LemonItly Thayieng

ST. olaf ColleGe

St. Olaf Collegium MusicumDr. Gerald Hoekstra, director

String EnsembleLindsie Katz, Baroque violinJared Brown, Baroque violinKatherin Canon, tenor viol

Isaac Maier, bass violOmar Macias, bass viol

Recorder EnsembleKayla Espindola, soprano recorder

Eric Broker, soprano recorderJonathan Sanchez, alto recorder

Donyell Sison, tenor recorderSebastian Surom, tenor recorderChristopher Steer, bass recorder

Wind EnsembleGerald Hoekstra, cornett

Ramsey Walker, tenor sackbutAntonio Patrick, tenor sackbutAbigail Senuty, tenor sackbutLinnea Pierson, bass dulcian

St. Olaf Early Music SingersDr. Gerald Hoekstra, director

Elysa Bond, soprano (Anima Beata, Echo)Lauren Hahn, soprano

(Vita Mondana, Anima Beata)Sophia Magro, soprano (Anima Beata)

Christa Schmidt, soprano (Anima Beata)Kasha Prinzing, alto

Annamarie Pearson, altoXuan He, alto

Guillermo Rodriguez, tenor (Piacere)Ryan Coopergard, tenor (Anima Dannate)

Jocque Warner, tenor (Anima Dannate)Charlie Baird, tenor

John Holmstrom, tenorWill Holt, tenor

Zach Rolfs, tenorEmory Tower, bass (Tempo, Compangno)

Nathaniel Hendrix, bass (Anima Dannate)Jacob Fossing, bass (Compangno)

Sebastian Surom, bass

Twin CiTieS lUTe CooperaTiveMary Burke, viola da gamba ~ Bruce Jacobs, organ

Phillip Rukavina, liuto attiorbato ~ Thomas Walker Jr., bass lute

Laura Hynes ~ Producer

Elizabeth Windnagel ~ Assistant Stage ManagerJane Skinner Peck ~ Dancer / Choreographer

Victoria McKean ~ Costume/Make-upJessica Solinsky ~ Lighting

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Acknowledgements

Tiffany Skidmore ~ Grant Assistance, SupportLisa Marshall ~ University of Minnesota Public Relations Communication Consultant

Julie Rithaler ~ Costumes (on loan from University of Minnesota Opera Theatre)Marlene Rukavina ~ Supertitles

Mary Mason - Cover Design, Program Notes, Program SupportSusan Barksdale ~ Program Booklet

Dance Revels Moving History ~ Costume Accessories and Props

Twin Cities

The Rev. Mark Thompson and St. Paul’s on-the-Hill and El Santo Niño Jesús, St. Paul Paul Thatcher ~ reception

David Walsh ~ Opera Department, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities: Costume shop; Workshop and rehearsal space

Bruce Jacobs ~ Continuo rehearsal space

St. Olaf College, Northfield

Barb Barth ~ Room Reservations and PostersThe Rev. Matt Marohl, Chaplain ~ Chapel Arrangements

Jeff O’Donnell ~ Director of Broadcast/Media Services

Concert PatronsWe gratefully acknowledge those who have given directly to help offset the expenditures

of this production:

Minnesota Regional Arts Council Phil Asgian, Marjory and Gary Dietz, Henry Dougherty

Bruce Jacobson, Darlene Petit and Karen Olson, Harry and Ginny SweattAnonymous

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Program Notes The year is 1600; you are living in Rome, and have heard the extraordinary buzz about a new musical presentation. It is to be a splendid event, the creation of the well-known and versatile composer Emilio de’ Cavalieri. It is a dramatic work, sung from beginning to end, and staged

and costumed, but performed in a chapel.

Expectations run high, yet what is this new music about? We don’t really know — opera has not quite invented itself, yet Cavalieri claims the invention for himself. There is no plot to the libretto, but only a discussion about good and evil; no one dies or goes insane. This all happens much later, when operas become musical dramatizations of romance, intrigue and murder.

For the first performance, because you have connections, you have secured a seat in the back row. There are re-served seats in the front for thirty-three Cardinals and their retinues. Their presence demonstrates the Church’s seal of approval of this entertainment. The Oratory of the church has been beautifully transformed with scenery made especially for the opera. As the music rolls on, the audience is greeted with the familiarity of dance forms and rhythms already known to it.

Yet there really is something new: solo vocal music press-es the words forward — much is said, quickly and dramatically. It is freed from the constrains of choral polyphony and is direct, almost speech-like, yet is music at the same time. It is called recitative — something recited. This is what quickly lights on fire what is probably the most avant-garde center of music making in all of Europe, the city-states of Florence and Rome. It is not long after Cavalieri’s opus that real opera begins to define itself.

Sitting there, listening to and experiencing this music, you will not necessarily be aware of its momentousness. The importance of Cavalieri’s opera would be borne out later, but within months, another opera is performed, and by 1607 Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo will stretch the bound-aries of opera even farther.

No doubt many of us would give a great deal to be sitting in one of those back seats of yester-year, yet we hope that by some extension, we may have in some measure tonight, this same delight.

~ MMM

Emilio de’ Cavalieri

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Emilio de’ Cavalieri (1550-1602), a Roman nobleman who was not only a composer, but a diplomat, organist, choreographer and dancer, was certainly an innovator, but he did not just make up the opera. This “new” musical form was not an instance of creatio ex nihilo, and although Cavalieri and some of his competitors certainly tried, nobody could fairly claim to have “invented” the opera. Although Rappresentatione was likely the first fully-staged work that was set to music from start to finish, it does not closely resemble what modern listeners would recognize as an opera: That honor probably belongs to Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, first performed in 1607. Even the word “opera,” simply meaning “work,” was not used to define a musical form until 1639 in Italian, and not until 1648 in English.

So where did this new thing come from?

Its roots are many, but we must begin in ancient Greece. Western drama originated in classi-cal Greece; as early as the fifth century BCE plays were common enough to have become the subject of competitions. But, as far as we knew, these plays were spoken rather than sung, although music often appeared during interludes. In Europe during the Middle Ages, miracle and mystery plays derived from Christian liturgies were performed, and these eventually evolved into more substantial works with secular themes.

Beginning in the late fifteenth century, intermedi, theatrical productions featuring instrumental and vocal music and dance, were performed between the acts of plays at festive occasions in Italian courts, especially in Florence and Ferrara. Under the aegis of families like the Medici, these intermedi grew increasingly elaborate, eventually becoming even more lavish than the plays themselves. Although at first the intermedi were performed on the same sets as the un-derlying plays, eventually, having taken on a life of their own, they required their own sets. The proscenium arch first appeared in the set design for the six lavish intermedi that were per-formed at the 1589 wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christine de Lorraine, Princess of France. Cavalieri was employed at that time by the Medici family as the Master of Ceremonies for its opulent musical spectacles, and also composed some of the music for the 1589 wedding intermedi. By the time Cavalieri began work on Rappresentatione, intermedi had become stand-alone works and quickly morphed into the new form that would become known as the opera.

Whether Rappresentatione was really the first “opera” is the subject of some debate among music historians. We do know that it was the first work of its kind to be published, and its score included another published first: a figured bass, musical notation using numbers and symbols under notes in the bass line to depict intervals and chords. Jacopo Peri’s Dafne, composed around 1597, was probably the first entirely-sung theatrical production, but it has been lost. The score for his Euridice, a much shorter work than Rappresentatione, has survived, but it is seldom performed except as an historical artifact. Euridice was first staged in October of 1600, but Rappresentatione had already been performed (twice) months before in February of that year. In November of 1600, shortly after the Euridice performance (which Cavalieri pro-duced), Cavalieri wrote a letter claiming that he, not Peri, was the true reviver of what he and others believed to be the ancient Greek style of acting with singing. Peri later acknowledged Cavalieri’s contribution in 1601 in his preface to the published version of Euridice.

And this brings us to the question of exactly what these early composers of “operas” were trying to accomplish. While the new (or, it was believed, restored) form — a play that was sung — was developing, there arose the question of the particular musical styles this form would employ.

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Beginning in 1573, a group of scholars, philosophers, musicians and poets were holding regular gatherings at the home of Count Giovanni de’ Bardi in Florence; this group later became known as the Florentine Camerata. Prominent members of this group included Giulio Caccini, Jacopo Peri, and Vincenzo Galilei, the celebrated lutenist and music theorist who was the discoverer of the physical properties of vibrating strings, as well as the father of the astron-omer Galileo Galilei (Eppur se muove! — Yet it moves!). Cavalieri also became associated with the group, but not until a number of years after its initial formation.

One of the Camerata’s goals was to revive Greek drama as the group supposed it to have been performed — that is, sung in its entirety. But in order to bring out the words of a drama, the music — which the Camerata believed had become corrupt and decadent — would have to become subordinate to the sung words, and therefore must be greatly simplified.

The Camerata’s solution became known as monody, also known as stile rappresentativo, which was characterized by a single vocal line with instrumental accompaniment. This style allowed the singer’s words to be easily understood, and represented what the Camerata com-posers believed to be the classical Greeks’ notion of dramatic declamation. The solo pieces in Rappresentatione are excellent examples of this style in the early stages of its development. Cavalieri, with some considerable exaggeration, actually claimed to have been the inventor of monody, but that honor is usually bestowed on Vincenzo Galilei and Giulio Caccini. As the result of an unsuccessful struggle with Caccini for control of the production of the festivities associated with another Medici wedding, Cavalieri left Florence for Rome in high dudgeon and never returned.

Cavalieri had nothing good to say about Caccini after departing Florence (evidently with good reason, since Caccini was known to have double-crossed just about everyone, including his own colleague Peri, to maintain his standing with the Medicis). About Caccini’s and Peri’s compositions Cavalieri wrote: “[my] music moves people to pleasure and sadness, while theirs moves them to boredom and disgust.” Soon thereafter Caccini wrote a collection of songs in the monodic style, Le nuove musiche (published in 1602), which featured an introduction de-scribing why and exactly how monodic music should be performed, including examples of “correct” ornamentation. The feud over who invented monody, among other things, appar-ently continued until Cavalieri’s death in 1602.

The new monodic style of declamatory singing soon became the recitative as it appeared in fully-developed operas, and was employed to advance the story line and to prepare for the big number, the aria. Rappresentatione does not include pieces we would clearly recognize as arias, but the monodic sections are alternately either more or less melodic and strophic; that is, the monodies are not all merely declamatory. Unlike the earlier works of Caccini and Peri, they often incorporate the dance rhythms of the intermedi. Later operas like L’Orfeo also included strophic songs, and these evolved into the da capo aria of the high Baroque.

And speaking of “baroque” — the term has come to be applied to the period of approx-imately 1600-1750, during which the dominant style was of highly ornamented music, archi-tecture and art. Although the Florentine Camerata composers claimed to be striving for sim-plicity, even their “simple” monodic style allowed for considerable ornamentation, instances of which appear in Rappresentatione. By 1607, Claudio Monteverdi was writing spectacularly ornamented passages like this one, from L’Orfeo:

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Since nature abhors a vacuum and virtuosi abhor a lack of opportunity to be virtuosic, the new monody presented a blank slate for lavish ornamentation, which became progressively more and more . . . baroque. During the later Baroque era, the opera became an established and very popular musical form; almost everyone (with the notable exception of Bach) was writing them. The first opera house opened in 1637 in Venice, making it possible for anyone with the price of admission to enjoy an opera. Opera having been an Italian “invention,” libretti in Italian were favored by many composers during the Baroque era and later. Many of the forty-two operas composed by Georg Frideric Handel, a German living in England, were in Italian. European composers soon began selecting libretti in their own languages, but for many years Italian was the predominant language for the dramatic opera, or opera seria. Even as late as 1781, Italian libretti so dominated the music scene in Vienna that Emperor Joseph II made a point of com-missioning operas to be sung in German, most notably Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail. Throughout most of the nineteenth century Italian and French operas prevailed, but by the mid-twentieth century the concept of “opera,” at least for non-musicians, would usually con-jure up a vision of large Teutonic ladies with spears.

The subject matter of the new operas, intended as they were to recreate the “correct” performance of classical Greek plays, was, of course, classical Greek plays. Greek dramas were the basis for the libretti of Peri’s Dafne, Caccine’s Euridice, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Arianna, and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and many others, continuing throughout and be-yond the Baroque period with works by composers throughout Europe — Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a number of Handel’s operas, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice — but Rappresentatione had a completely different theme. It is, quite uniquely, a philosophical discussion set to music. While the underlying form had mainly secular origins, the content was religious, although it was neither liturgical nor even very overtly Christian.

Rappresentatione was first performed at the Oratorio (Oratory) de Filippini next to the church of Santa Maria in Valincella in Rome, the founding church of the Oratorian movement. The Oratorians were a congregation of priests and lay brothers founded by St. Philip Neri in Rome 1575; the Oratorian Society still exists, and includes 70 Oratories (the term for their religious communities and for the build-ings used for services and meetings) throughout the world. Santa Maria was given to the Oratorians by Pope Gregory XIII and was rebuilt by Neri in 1575. The attached Oratory was essentially a private chapel, used for services other than masses and for meetings. Cavalieri and his family had a long-standing and close connection with the Oratorians, Church of Santa Maria

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including Neri himself. Cavalieri, having severed his relationship with the Medicis and the Florentine Camerata and returned to Rome, made use of his Oratorian connections to acquire both a libretto and a concert hall for his new composition. And, since the Oratorians’ philoso-phy emphasized simplicity, it was not surprising that they embraced Cavalieri’s new monodic style of music and were pleased to sponsor these performances.

The libretto for Rappresentatione is attributed to Agostino Manni, a priest of Neri’s Oratory. Manni’s libretto was based loosely on a dialogue between Soul (Anima) and Body (Corpo) in the lauda “Anima mea che pensi.” Laude were sacred vernacular songs that origi-nated in Italy in the Middle Ages, and were possibly influenced by the Troubadours. Some texts of the laude that were sung in Neri’s Oratory were written by Manni; others, like the anonymous “Anima mea” included in the Oratory’s Laudario (compilation of laude), were much older. Some scholars believe the laude were themselves an immediate antecedent of the Baroque oratorio, a term given to these works because as they developed they were often performed in oratories. And some historians consider Rappresentatione, because of its religious text, to have been the first oratorio. However, a work in the form of what is now considered to be a true oratorio did not appear until almost 20 years later, with Giovanni Anerio’s Teatro harmonico spiritual; and the first work that was actually called an oratorio, Pietro della Valle’s Oratorio della Purificazione, was written in about 1640.

The fact that Cavalieri instructed Rappresentatione to be staged, with scenery, costumes and dances, supports its classification as an opera, but later Baroque oratorios shared many of the characteristics of the opera — elaborate instru-mentation, recitatives and ornamented arias. Where Rappre-sentatione can be said to have been an anomaly, or perhaps a thing that was neither quite opera nor quite oratorio — was that its libretto was not only religious, but lacked a true plot. The contemporaneous proto-operas, and those that followed, told a story that moved in time (although not much time: classical dramas were required to take place in one day).

As they deviated more and from “reconstructions” of Greek plays, opera plots became increasingly lurid, and by the nineteenth century they routinely featured themes of passion, adultery, intrigue, madness and murder. Operas are still be-ing written, and modern operas are often at least as dark and bloody as their predecessors: Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle,

Arnold Schönbeg’s Erwartung, Alban Berg’s Lulu, and Nico Muhly’s Two Boys are just a few examples of this tradition. Opera composers have never quite abandoned the Greeks, either: Consider Strauss’ Elektra, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek.

But Rappresentatione was never so flamboyantly dramatic, although it does contain a depiction of hellfire. This opera has no doomed lovers, mad sorceresses, or murdered kings. Instead, it features a collection of allegorical characters and a chorus, which provides commentary in the manner of the classical Greek chorus, and also fills the roles of angels, damned souls in Hell, and blessed souls in Heaven.

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Our performance opens with three instrumental sinfonias by Cristofano Malvezzi, a contem-porary of Cavalieri who was probably also a member of the Florentine Camerata. Malvezzi, like Cavalieri, composed intermedi for the festivals of the Medici family. The original version of Rappresentatione followed with a lengthy spoken dialogue (“Proem”) between two young men, Awareness and Prudence. Our performance omits this dialogue and instead picks up at Act I, where Time tells us to do good works because time passes quickly and death follows. The Chorus, followed by the Intellect, offer their comments, followed by a debate between Soul and Body about the true purpose of life.

In Act II, the conflict between the forces of worldliness and those of the spirit intensify with the appearance of additional characters: Pleasure, two companions, Worldly Life, and a Guardian Angel. In this act the beautiful clothing is metaphorically stripped away from Plea-sure and Worldly Life, revealing their true ugliness, and Body and Soul drive them off the stage. In Act III, Hell opens up to show us the spirits of the damned, followed by the appear-ance of the blessed souls in Heaven. Soul, Body, Intellect, and Counsel together urge the audi-ence to love God and shun the “defrauding world,” and together with the Chorus sing praises to God.

This final celebration includes instrumental ritornelli and dances, in keeping with the tradi-tions of the Florentine intermedi. Our production features dances in the style of the early sev-enteenth century, including the galliard (gagliarda in Italian), an athletic dance that with its variants was popular throughout Europe at the time. The distinctive six-beat pattern of the galliard will be familiar to the listener as the rhythm of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (or, if you prefer, “God Save the Queen”):

Listen closely and you will hear this galliard rhythm in one of the ritornelli at the end of Act III.

Cavalieri considered dance to be an essential element of his productions. He had produced not only the music but the choreography for the final dances at the 1589 Medici wedding, and he referred to this performance in the preface in Rappresentatione’s published score. He directed that dances be performed at the conclusion of the piece, and included instructions for them, remarking that “dances enliven these performances exceedingly.”

Rappresentatione is a fascinating and, for its time, an entirely avant-garde creation. We do not present this work simply as an interesting museum piece, but as a magnificent and delightful work that will enable the audience to hear “new” music with seventeenth-century ears.

~ MWM

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A Very Select Chronology of World Events in the Era of Emilio de’ Cavallieri, 1550-1602

1550 Birth of Emilio de’ Cavallieri

1585 Death of composer Thomas Tallis

1587 English colony at Roanoke, Virginia, founded — then abandoned, its inhabitants subsumed into Native American cultures

1588 England defeats the Spanish Armada

1590 Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queen published

1590 Composer Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, murders his wife and her lover

1591 Death of Vincenzo Galilei, father of Galileo, and early creator of recitativo style, c. 1580, Florence

1592 First performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III

1595 First European expedition, led by Spain, to Polynesia

1595 Death of Filippo Neri, acquaintance of Cavalieri, Rome

1598 Boris Godunov seizes Russian throne

1598 First performance of a theatrical work in the New World, in what is now El Paso

1599 Death of Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero

1600 English East India Company established

1600 Peruvian volcano, Huaynaputina, explodes, creating the most violent eruption ever recorded in South America

1600 Avant garde artist Caravaggio paints two works for the Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

1602 Painter Peter Rubens is in Rome painting large format pictures for the church of Santa Croce

1602 Death of Emilio de’ Cavallieri

1602 Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote de la Mancha is published

1603 Death of Elizabeth I

1607 Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo performed

1607 Jamestown, Virginia, established

1609 Champlain’s French colony established in Quebec

1609 Germany’s first newspaper The Relation debuts

1610 Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Virgine composed and performed, Venice

1610 Galileo publishes Sidereus Nuncius, describing the moons of Jupiter for the first time

1614 James Napier invents logarithms

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About The PerformersThe Gregorian Singers, under the direction of its founding director, Monte Mason, is an ensemble that has been dedicated to high standards of music for over forty years. The four-teen-voice ensemble has sung at the American Choral Directors’ national conference, a region-al convention of the American Guild of Organists, a concert series at St. John’s Cathedral, Den-ver, and at the 2003 National Convention of the Episcopal Church. It has received radio airtime in Minnesota and nationally, and is known for its broad repertoire, including chant and other early music, shape-note hymns, and Norwegian folk-hymns, as well as newly-commissioned works. http://www.thegregoriansingers.org

Monte Mason received a Bachelor’s Degree in piano performance at Macales-ter College in 1971. After additional musical studies at the University of Min-nesota, he left academia to pursue perfomance opportunities, including the formation of The Gregorian Singers at age 23. The abiding factors in this deci-sion included a personal and professional yearning to learn more about chant and to experience its performance. Howard Don Small, organist/choirmaster at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis, was instrumental in allowing this experi-ment to take place in the lovely visual and acoustic setting of the cathedral. Almost forty years later, the rest has been history. Other positions and passions include organ-ist/choirmaster at St. Martin’s by the Lake Episcopal Church in Minnetonka Beach, composer, editor, piano teacher, writer, botanist, and maintaining various odd collections in his home in South Minneapolis.

The St. Olaf Early Music Singers, directed by Gerald Hoekstra, is one of seven under-graduate student choirs at St. Olaf College. Membership is by audition only and typically con-sists of 14-20 singers. The ensemble focuses primarily on music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, and while it performs most of its music as a choral group, students also have the opportunity to perform madrigals and other music appropriate for small ensembles one to a part or as soloists with early instruments. The Early Music Singers presents a concert each semester in collaboration with the Collegium Musicum and presents a chapel service of Christmas music each December and a chapel service of Lenten music each spring. http://wp.stolaf.edu/ems/

The St. Olaf Collegium Musicum, also directed by Gerald Hoekstra, is an ensemble of St. Olaf College students that performs music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras on historical instruments. Students in the ensemble learn to play and perform on instruments owned by the college — recorders, viols, sackbuts, lutes, cornetts, etc. The Collegium collabo-rates with the Early Music Singers to present a concert of early music each semester and occa-sionally for other performances as well. http://wp.stolaf.edu/collegium/

Gerald Hoekstra is Professor of Music at St. Olaf College, where he teaches music history and directs the Collegium Musicum and the Early Music Sing-ers. Hoekstra earned his Ph.D. in Musicology at The Ohio State University, completing his dissertation under the direction of Richard H. Hoppin. His area of specialization is music of the Renaissance, particularly the French and Flem-ish chanson, but he also has interests in medieval music, the music of Bach, and jazz history. As a performer Hoekstra has studied trumpet, recorder, viola

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da gamba, and choral conducting. He has published articles in The Sixteenth Century Jour-nal, Early Music, Musica Disciplina, Speculum, and The Choral Journal; and he has published critical editions of music of Hubert Waelrant, André Pevernage, and others, most recently an edition of in three volumes of Pevernage’s Cantiones sacrae (Douai, 1578). Hoekstra currently serves General Editor of the Yale Collegium Musicum series, published by A-R Editions. In 2002 he was presented with Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to early music performance in higher education. From 2003-2009 he served on the board of EMA and as chair of the Committee for Early Music in Higher Educa-tion.

The University Opera Theatre, directed by David Walsh, is a dynamic training programme designed to provide the next generation of opera singers with the skills and genuine performance experience they require to succeed in the professional world of opera. UOT mounts two full mainstage productions with orchestra per year and offers, in addition, lab classes on acting and stage technique, as well as scene studies from opera, operetta, and musical theatre. The Opera History class provides a social and cultural context for the study and preparation of operas and opera roles. UOT actively seeks performance opportunities for the voice students in the broader Twin Cities community. Very special thanks to David Walsh and the University Opera Theatre for its generous and multi-faceted support. Costumes for our production were made by Julie Rithaler and graciously loaned from UOT. https://music.umn.edu/ensembles/opera

Dance Revels Moving History, formed in 1990, offers a unique and engaging view of upper Midwest regional history, as well as American and European history of the 16th-20th centuries. Their mission is to portray active and inclusive stories of our ancestors, especially those left untold. Director Jane Peck has created a new and exciting blend of period dance, theater, and live music to tell these stories. They have performed at the Ordway Center, Walk-er Art Center, Mpls Institute of Arts, the Southern Theater, Festival de Voyageur of Canada, Madison Early Music Festival, Duluth’s Early Music Orchestra under Shelley Gruskin. Dance Revels has active performing partnerships with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. With sponsorship by Young Audiences of MN and MN State Arts Board Folk Arts Roster Dance Revels, has toured their show, “A Voyageur’s Tale,” to Minnesota schools and museums since 1998, telling the tale of French and French-Indian roots in the Midwest. They now offer 4 different school shows of active regional, national, and European history, as well as community dance evenings. Their concert performance offerings range from baroque commedia theater with dance, to Jane Austen era dance theater, to early Midwestern settlement era multi-ethnic stories, and finally the Ragtime era. Dance Revels has a strong com-mitment to live music. This unusual ensemble has produced joint performances with Musica et Saltatore of Vienna, Austria and L’Ensemble Folklorique of Winnipeg, Canada. http://janepeck.com/

Jane Peck is a choreographer, educator, and dance historian. She has researched and staged history performances in dance and theater across U.S., Canada, and France for twenty years. She has extensive training in both modern dance and dance history, directing her own per-

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formances with her company, Dance Revels Moving History, since 1990. Jane recreates and choreographs dances from four centuries and several cultures. The group performs school and museum shows through St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Young Audiences of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Jane has per-formed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the Ordway Center Minnesota, and with the international faculty orchestra of the Madison Early Music Festival Wisconsin. Jane has choreographed for numerous colleges and arts ensembles, including famed Shelley Gruskin, Piffaro, New York Baroque Dance Company, Long Island Fringe Festival, Jean Paul Cloutier (L’Ensemble Folkorique, Canada), and Sybille Dahms (Aus-tria), among others. She has taught early dance workshops at the Early Music Institute of the University of Indiana/Bloomington, University of Wisconsin/Madison, and nearly all Min-nesota colleges. Jane has been an adjunct professor of music at the University of St. Thomas, an adjunct professor of dance at the University of Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College, and is currently dance adjunct instructor at Winona State University. Jane and Dance Revels produced the video, How to Dance with Bach, for musicians and music teachers in 2012. To purchase: revels@janepeck.com.

The Twin Cities Lute Cooperative was founded in 2004, and is an organization of lo-cal lutenists which serves to promote performances of early plucked-string instruments such as the Renaissance and Baroque lutes, the vihuela da mano, theorbo, and others in the Twin Cities area. The organization presents a monthly concert series at Immanuel Lutheran Church (104 Snelling Avenue South) in St. Paul on every third Thursday of the month from September through May. Called “Thursday at the Lute Cafe,” it is an informal, coffeehouse-style recital series which features the lute as either a solo instrument or performing in ensemble. www.facebook.com/pages/Twin-Cities-Lute-Cooperative

Phillip Rukavina has performed widely as a lute and vihuela da mano soloist, ensemble performer, and as a continuo lutenist. He has appeared on many major concert series, including Early Music Now, Early Music Columbus, Music in the Park, Seattle Early Music Guild, La Guitarra California, and at the Metropoli-tan Museum in New York City. He teaches regularly on the faculty of the Lute Society of America’s Seminars at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, directing the event in 2008, 2010, and 2012. Phillip has also directed the lute pro-gram at the Amherst Early Music Festival in 2005, 2007, and 2009. In 1998, Phillip received a Travel Study grant from the Jerome Foundation, and was awarded a second Jerome grant in 2003. He is a founding member of the Venere Lute Quartet, appearing on their three critically-acclaimed compact discs Sweet Division (2003), Palestrina’s Lute (2007) and Airy En-tertainments (2010). He has performed with various ensembles, including the Newberry Con-sort, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Rose Ensemble, and the Gregorian Singers. Phillip studied lute with Pat O’Brien in New York and with Hopkinson Smith at the Academie Musical in Villecroze, France, and in Basel, Switzerland.

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Laura Hynes (Producer): A Fulbright scholar in Paris, coloratura soprano Laura Hynes spent six years abroad in France and Germany, performing repertoire ranging from baroque opera with Les Arts Florissants to “classical cabaret” on French television and radio. She has performed opera, solo recit-als, and concerts throughout Europe and the US, including New York’s Alice Tully Hall, the Barbican in London, and the Châtelet in Paris. Since moving back to the U.S. in 2010, she earned her doctorate at the University of Minne-sota as the Carolyn Bailey and Dominick Argento Fellow. She currently main-tains a private voice studio in St. Paul, directs opera workshop scenes at the University of Minnesota, and performs regularly in the Twin Cities.

Maria Jette (Anima) has appeared with The Saint Paul Chamber Orches-tra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston, Kansas City, Santa Rosa, Charlotte, Buffalo, Grand Rapids, Austin, and San Antonio Symphonies, New York Chamber Symphony and Portland Baroque Orchestra, the San Luis Obispo Mozart and Oregon Bach Festivals, Tucson Desert Song Festival, and the Oregon Festival of American Music; and for many merry sea-sons with much-missed Ex Machina Antique Music Theatre here in the Twin Cities. She’s often heard locally with Vocalessence, Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, Minnesota Sinfonia and Lyra Baroque Orchestra; and nationally on A Prairie Home Compan-ion.

Before breaking her leg last month, Maria’s busy season included the Prairie Home Compan-ion cruise of the Mediterranean; a recital of Haydn, Mozart and Reichardt with fortepianist Jacques Ogg; the inaugural concerts of the new Minnesota Vivaldi Festival with Henry Leb-edinsky; the US premiere of Jonathan Dove’s There Was a Child with VocalEssence and Philip Brunelle; Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Music St. Croix; Christmas Pops concerts with the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir; and Mozart’s Requiem with The Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra and Hugh Wolff. She and Dan Chouinard are currently finishing another CD of P.G. Wodehouse’s lyrics (The Siren’s Song: Wodehouse and Kern on Broadway) for re-lease this spring — their first CD, In Our Little Paradise, is available online. For upcoming performances and other info: www.mariajette.com.

Nick Chalmers (Corpo) has recently sung with The Mirandola Ensemble, Glorious Revolution Baroque, and the Minnesota Opera. Currently, Nick sings with the The Rose Ensemble, teaches at St. Francis High School and Chesterton Academy, and directs the Youth Choir and Schola Cantorum at Holy Family Church in St. Louis Park. In 2007, Nick graduated from St. Olaf College, where he was a member of the Early Music Singers and tenor section leader of The St. Olaf Choir. He also sings occasionally with The Gregorian Singers.

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Sara Lin Yoder (Consiglio) recently graduated with a B.M. in Vocal Performance from the University of Minnesota. Previously performed roles include Nannetta (Falstaff), Susi (Die Fledermaus), Jessica (Sister Carrie), Audrey (Little Shop of Horrors), and John the Baptist (Cotton Patch Gospel). Sara currently lives in Minneapolis and is looking forward to attending graduate school in the Fall of 2014.

Lauren Feider (Angelo custode) is in the final semester of her undergraduate pursuits at the University of Minnesota, where she recently performed Donna Anna in a chamber production of Don Giovanni. After she graduates with degrees in Music Education and Vocal Performance, she plans to formally continue her vocal training while advocating the importance of music’s presence in schools.

Patrick Terry (Intelletto) is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, where he participated in the ECCO program, a vocal training partnership with the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Opera. Patrick was a student at Summer Baroque Academy in Evia, Greece, where he received daily lessons and coachings from Lynne Dawson and Michael Chance.

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Upcoming Events from Participating Groups

The GreGorian SinGerS Monte Mason, Founding Director

http://www.thegregoriansingers.org

Lenten VespersWednesday, March 19 ~ 7:00 pm

Bethlehem Lutheran Church4100 South Lyndale Avenue, Minneapolis

Great Paschal VespersSunday, April 27 ~ 8:00 pm

Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church on-the-Hill 1524 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul

ST. olaf ColleGe early MuSiC SinGerS & ColleGiuM MuSiCuM

Gerald Hoekstra, Directorhttp://wp.stolaf.edu/ems/ http://wp.stolaf.edu/collegium/

Lenten Chapel ServiceFriday, March 14 ~ 10:10 amLassus, Penitential Psalm no. 1:

Domine, ne in furore tuo

St. Olaf Early Music Singers Boe Memorial Chapel, St. Olaf College

Spring ConcertFriday, April 25~ 7:30 pm

Music of Josquin, Lassus, Byrd, and GabrieliSt. Olaf Early Music Singers

and Collegium MusicumBoe Memorial Chapel, St. Olaf College

univerSiTy of MinneSoTa opera TheaTre https://music.umn.edu/ensembles/opera

The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček

Thursday–Saturday, April 10-12 (7:30 pm) Sunday, April 13 (1:30 pm)Tickets: 612-624-2345 or https://www.tickets.umn.edu/UMATO/Online/

Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota

DanCe revelS MovinG hiSTory http://janepeck.com/

Our new instructional DVD, How to Dance With Bach, is for sale! The perfect follow-up to a baroque and classical dance workshop by Jane Peck and Dance Revels.

Improve your performance practice and enjoyment! Contact: revels@janepeck.com

Twin CiTieS luTe CooperaTive www.facebook.com/pages/Twin-Cities-Lute-Cooperative

Thursday at the Lute CaféThird Thursday of every month from September through May

Immanuel Lutheran Church, 104 Snelling Avenue South, St. Paul